WITH the summer teetering on a knife-edge in a sweltering Markievicz Park and Sligo on the attack, the ball is popped into the path of Mark Breheny.
It hops up off the turf and as the Sligo forward comes out to collect, the imposing figure of Jack Dowling comes in at full pace as well.
A 50-50 collision ensues. The Sligo forward stays down and is unquestionably hurt, with Niall Carew still sweating to discover the damage.
It ended Breheny’s game and it ended Dowling’s as well. Longford referee Fergal Kelly, after consultation with linesman Ciaran Branagan, decided that the challenge merited a straight red card.
“I haven’t seen it again but my memory is that as I turned around, there was a ball in the air,” recalls the St Brigid’s man.
“We both just ran for the ball and we collided, he came off worse. That’s what I can remember. I definitely didn’t lead with the elbow.
“I was lying on the ground and I heard the referee saying to our physio ‘it’s a red card’. I thought for a second ‘maybe I am concussed, did he just say that was a red card?’
“I couldn’t believe it. If it was an Ulster Championship game, I’d question whether it would even be a free or not, never mind a red card.
“Our physio was basically checking to see if I was alright. They were both over me and I heard the referee saying ‘it’s a red card anyway, so he has to go off’. I didn’t really believe it.”
Asked whether the referee had indicated that the red card was for an elbow, Dowling said: “No, he just said it was for dangerous play.
“I went for the ball and when you’re doing that, you don’t care if you’re going to hit someone, the ball’s first priority.
“It’s a Championship game, people get hit. I’ve never seen anyone get sent off for anything like that in my life. It’s disappointing.”
Dowling was due to speak to county board officials before deciding whether to pursue an appeal, with added haste for a few Monday morning hours when it emerged Sligo had used seven subs.
The confusion was quickly cleared up though as the replacement of Mark Breheny in the incident that saw Dowling red carded was as a blood replacement.
Breheny didn’t come back on in the 31 minutes that remained of the game but the rules permit an unlimited number of blood replacements that do not have to be reversed before full-time.
And so the curtain is definitely drawn on Antrim’s summer at the first hurdle again. Yet despite the bare facts of a season that saw them relegated back to Division Four, beaten by Donegal and now Sligo in Championship, there are reasons to be positive.
Yet the Saffrons fell victim again to the psychological demons that have haunted them in recent years, unable to rouse themselves after Jamie Brennan’s goal just before half-time in Ballybofey and then petering away when they went down to 14 men at the weekend.
“If you look at the games we’ve played this year, we put Armagh right to the line and missed a penalty in the last 10 minutes. We put Tipperary to the line for 55 minutes.
“Donegal, for the first 30 minutes, it wasn’t just them not being on top of their game, we played really well. We were cutting them open and had three goal chances in the first half.
“We put it to them for 30 minutes and they got a goal and we dropped the heads again. I don’t know what it is.
“We train as hard and as much as most other county teams in Ireland. It’s not a lack of training. We’re out four or five nights a week.
“Antrim players wouldn’t recognise themselves as doing that and talk about Donegal training five or six nights a week, but so are we.
“I wouldn’t say it was a case of fitness or the legs going, it’s just a mental thing. There’s just something there that it’s been happening for so many years, it’s just in the back of your head.
“You’d need to talk to a sports psychologist about it. There’s a block there that’s stopping us getting over the line in big games.
“You just need a breakthrough. Once you get it, then we’ll push on, but it’s just getting that one wee break you need to really propel on.
“I think we could be a solid Division Two team, but we need to learn how to get breaks and build on it. We can’t be relying on luck; we need to make our own luck.”
